Many folks have written recently about how divided America is, especially in the post-2016 moment, but few have done so as gracefully as Jeff Sharlet in his most recent book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War.
And yet, as the old saying goes, “Hope is a choice.” What tomorrow, next year, decade, or century might look like, we do not know. The current trends point toward more animosity and broader culture wars. But I am confident that we have the capacity to make choices that produce better outcomes than we see today.
This book might open the eyes of young readers (and older ones, too) so that we can see enemies as fellow humans, as people in need, and as brothers and sisters with the potential to work with us to heal this broken world.
Obscurely yet surely backyard birds simple & further from corruption with the wonder of wings call us to praise…
I think it would be nearly impossible to read this book and not consider with far more care both how we read and why we read. And that is, at least in part, what reading is for.
It’s no longer time for each side to blame the other side for what happened. Angry, mocking words about those jerks on the other side are unhelpful. That’s the kind of thing that unbelievers are especially watching for. People of the world don’t care if we’re organizationally or institutionally one or not. What they want to see is whether or not we love one another.
His beard tightly curled, black locks in ringlets, Saul’s regal forehead slumbers on bedrock at the mouth of a shepherd’s desert cave …
Carol Cook: You had mentioned at the beginning that one of the distinctive features of the Reformed tradition, at least at its best, is that it continues to be open to reformation. As you reflect on the course of your lifetime, are there some significant ways you have witnessed the Reformed tradition in this process of reforming itself? Freda Gardner: Well at one level, we certainly could think about the role of the church in changing our minds about slavery,…
Cancer doesn’t care who or what you are. Speak all your evidence, demand all your rights and entitlements, share your unfulfilled dreams. And be prepared for silence. Cancer isn’t listening.
